The Case for Keeping Gates

By Nancy Soderberg and Brian Katulis | October 14, 2008

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Here’s a free piece of advice to President Barack Obama or President John McCain: There’s no need to look for a new secretary of defense. You already have the best man in the job.

The Obama campaign in particular seems to have noticed the virtues of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. It’s a little head-spinning to see senior Democrats lauding a Bush cabinet officer in the heat of the campaign, but earlier this month, Richard Danzig, the former Navy secretary who has become one of Obama’s closest national security aides, said that many of Gates’s pragmatic policies at the Pentagon "are things that Senator Obama agrees with and I agree with." Danzig added that Gates could do "even better" if he stayed on the job in an Obama administration.

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